Lottery Winnings Help

Hello.  I recently won 2nd prize in the Mega Millions Lotto in NY with 22 of my co workers.  This was 4 months ago and we're STILL trying to find a way to cash the ticket.  The problem is that NY Lotto only gives you 10 tickets no matter how many players you have in your group.  Now that's a problem because we need to distribute the money equally and the taxes too.  The Federal and State take the money right off the top I was told.  We had a lawyer that was gonna create a trust for us so we can put the check in the trust and disburse it that way but the lawyer is very unprofessional and hasnt returned our calls or emails at all.  Also a few people asked me why I would create a trust for it.  Does anyone know how we can go about cashing this ticket and getting all 23 of us to equally share the taxes and money?  We'd like to get this done in the quickest possible way because this is going on 5 months now and it's extremely frustrating especially because I need this money.  Someone also mentioned us putting the check in a lawyers escrow account and we can get the money much faster is this true?  Please help me out.. Thank you.

See the responses to your post earlier this week on the Personal Tax board.